By James and Audora Burg
Posted May. 6, 2013 at 10:14 PM
Updated May 6, 2013 at 10:15 PM

Follow proper dishwasher loading technique, help your relationship?

According to a press release from home appliance manufacturer Bosch, 41 percent of couples bicker over how to load the dishwasher.

There is an unlikely ally in the campaign to keep relationships calm in the kitchen. Or maybe we’ve just been conned by a public relations ploy designed to sell more dishwashers.

Results from a survey commissioned last year by Bosch revealed the following top five areas of contention amongst couples around mechanical dish-washing: whether to pre-rinse or just load ‘em gunk and all, separate the dishes or cram in as many as possible, load sharp knives point up or point down, load plastic on the top rack only or bottom as well, and integration of cups and plates or separate them by racks.

Of the five areas, the pre-rinse conflict was the top issue as cited by 61 percent of respondents. There was no division of the sexes on this one; men and women who mentioned this conflict were equally irritated.

Not-so with the separation vs. cram them in question, where the survey showed women were more likely to fight about this than men. In general, women preferred to separate the items while male respondents preferred the “pile-up technique.”

The Battle of the Sexes element here is not what got our attention; rather, it was the statement from Bosch that likened their recommended loading instructions to sound relationship wisdom: “Like any good relationship where each person needs their space, each dish should be separated by a dishwasher’s tines.”

We once had conflicting perspectives on the space issue, at least in the dishwasher. Interestingly, our positions were opposite from those in the survey: Jim was of the school of separation, where Audora tended to load dishes as compactly as possible.

She viewed her approach as efficient, a savings in both time and energy: the more dishes she could get into one load, the fewer loads she would need to run overall. He saw her method as ineffective, because water could not clean the surfaces that it could not reach.

Ultimately, she adapted her loading technique when she realized he was being practical, not picky. Not to mention, he was right that the dishes were not getting clean.

In a demonstration of accepting Jim’s influence and input, Audora experimented with the spacing-things-out method and voila —cleaner dishes.

And interestingly, when she adapted, so did he in terms of pitching in more often with the kitchen clean-up.

So, can following appliance manufacturer’s recommendations really improve marriages? Maybe. And this is Jim thinking out loud here, but perhaps this is a reason to buy a few new appliances, in the name of relationship science?

Page 2 of 2 - Audora, thinking out loud, says, uh, never mind.

James Burg, Ph.D., is an associate professor at Indiana University-Purdue, Fort Wayne. His wife, Audora, is a freelance writer. You may contact them at marriage@charter.net